Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Union Endorsements of Dillard and What Comes Next?

The primaries are
coming up quickly, and we are sidelined…without anyone in the race.Without anyone to advocate for the working
class, or the middle class.

It wasn’t always
this way.Public unions in Illinois were
able to influence and affect political outcomes.Legislators wanted to represent the voice of
the workers, the people, and the middle class.Now, politicians avoid conversations about their past promises, identify
the unions as being the state’s solution to its revenue problem, and justify
the further fleecing of public sector workers with convoluted rationales like
“then the courts can tell us what to do.”

It
hurts.

And, of course,
adding insult to injury is the latest support of Senator Kirk Dillard of
Hinsdale by the Illinois Education Association as well the Illinois Retired
Teachers Association – two organizations initially quick to jump into the legal
argument against SB1.

What
gives?

Senator Dillard
was quite clear in his articulation of position at his previous gubernatorial
debate.His perception of a revenue
problem was the “67% tax increase” that he “didn’t vote for” and his plan to
help defeat it, despite Illinois’ serious income problems.Dillard also called for a Constitutional
Amendment for a balanced budget, not a fair tax system.He did present the possibility of a blue
ribbon panel to look at taxes in general.Thanks a lot.

And although
Senator Dillard did not vote affirmative in “this last” SB1 pension reform, he
suggested pension reform was an answer to the problems facing Illinois;
furthermore, he believed that real money to save the state would come from
Medicaid fraud reform.“If you really
are looking for savings (translates money), it’s gotta come from the Medicaid
system of Illinois.”

Still, public
unions in Illinois are moving to endorse Dillard in the Republican primary, the
IEA even giving some $250,000 in assistance.Of course, that’s chump change for Rauner.

According to IEA,
Senator Dillard has recently given up his position as state chairman of the
American Legislative Exchange Commission, a Koch brothers consortium which
provides opportunities for “member” state legislators to journey to lovely
climes and meet with legal advisors to help craft legislation for promotion of
the Koch brothers liking:“Right to work legislation.
Prohibiting union dues deductions. Prohibiting release time for union
activities. Repealing minimum wage laws (Dillard’s own personal favorite).
Opposing consumer protection laws” (http://preaprez.wordpress.com/
).

Does he promise
to be the same as he has been?An
insider, as Rauner besmirches him, Dillard is a glad-hander who works in the
old-fashioned way.After all, one of his
chief bailiwicks in the gubernatorial debate is to lessen regulation and
promote business.That doesn’t sound
like a forward thinking legislator concerned with tax loopholes or revenue
answers. But IEA and IRTA still support
him.

On the other
hand, Senator Dillard is an enemy the unions know and understand.

In likelihood,
Dillard is the first wave of Kamikaze thrown at a greater threat called Bruce Rauner,
who indeed fits nicely into the fascist/war metaphor.Recall, Rauner conjured Mitch Daniels as the
supreme architect of state leadership in his bringing together big corporate interests
to turn around Indiana (to make it a right to work state). In his debate moment, Rauner promised to
gather the thirty greatest corporate people (would that include Ty Fahner and
Ken Griffin?) to redirect Illinois from Springfield.A person without a cheap watch like Bruce’s,
and a longer perception of time, might remember Il Duce’s (Mussolini) use of
the big corporates to subjugate the political in Italy – which he later coined a
beginning of fascism.And that
helped…?Bruce Rauner, Uberleader. But I digress.

So where is my
union, and what the heck are they doing?

A good friend of
mine once admonished some of us (including me) about the dangers of not falling into line with my own
union’s positions.Indeed, he may be
correct, although cutting deals with a variety of devils seems at best
discomforting.

“I always stay
with the girl I brought to the dance,” he finger-wagged. But in the case of Illinois (and many
states), the girl may have been dying all the way to the social.

The increases in
employment have been in retail and restaurant positions, vocations with little
if any unionized opportunities.Even
though we witness a televised surge of Wal-Mart employees demanding a living
wage, most of the retail workforce is silent and sullenly capitulate.

What was a high
of 35% union participation in the 1950’s is now hovering around 11.3%.Significant drops in manufacturing and
government employees have been occurring, and embittered battles in Wisconsin and Indiana have resulted in unfortunate
plunges in unions’ memberships.State
laws prohibiting required payment of union fees have produced declines of 13
percent in Wisconsin and nearly 18 percent in Indiana – in just this last
year.

The long-term
view is not much better.“The bureau
(Labor Statistics) said union membership in the public sector – long a labor stronghold
– fell to 35.9 percent in 2012, from 37 percent the previous year.The number of government workers in unions
fell by 234,000, as many teachers, police officers, and others lost their jobs.
There were 7.3 million public employees in unions compared with seven million
private sector workers” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/business/union-membership-drops-despite-job-growth.html?_r=0).

So, without a
winning hand, we are left to play out what cards we have?

Shall we throw
down a futile gesture to counter Rauner in some way or another…and then what?

Support Quinn, of
course.After all, this is Illinois
politics, not a romantic date to the dance where some discretions might be
obliquely observed, despite the sorry state of your date.

And, as one very
intelligent and hard-working young active advised me, what makes the
unpalatable and inevitable outcome less disgusting is the very ineffectiveness
of Quinn, the complete disregard by the General Assembly for whatever he
champions, and the very vagueness of his bumbling political intentions.

2 comments:

I had extreme attack of the giggles watching Chicago Tonight debate on whether IEA's endorsement of Dillard will hurt or help him, so much that my wife was concerned about my sanity. What if IEA would have endorsed Rauner instead? Could we have derailed him with an endorsement?

About Me

I am a retiree, political activist, social advocate and community volunteer. I taught at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange for 34 years in the Language Arts classroom and worked as an administrator for several years. My current avocations include various community outreach and assistance programs. Having benefitted from employment in a collegial, reflective teaching environment that encouraged dedication and professionalism, I continue to seek the promotion of education at all levels as a long-term effort combining talent, perseverance, commitment, and constant professional growth - not a blind adherence to a business model of measured production.

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